When Jerry walked out across his lawn to catch the morning bus to Effendale High, he stopped to admire the new car Mr. Atkinson had growing in his lawn. Jerry could see the doors stretching up towards the roof, small branches of metal trying to reach their stringy edges up and around the rough frame. It looked like a regular car had melted, but in reverse. Every day Jerry stepped out, he could see more of the car’s gray paneling filling in around the rough frame. Mr. Atkinson tended towards planting larger luxury cars, like any other retired old man. The half-finished Caddilac sat in between the rose bushes and posies that Mrs. Atkinson cared for. Both car and bushes glinted with a fresh coating of morning dew.

Very cool idea, though there were too many unanswered questions for me: how can a plant have moving engine parts, especially ones based on internal combustion? The end sort of just drifted off without any climax. But it was a very cool idea.

I really enjoyed how this one hearkens back to 50's and 60's nostalgia fiction focused on cars. There's a lot of good coming of age fiction (in all genres) that utilizes the car as a metaphor for freedom and the path from adolescence to adulthood. This includes a bunch of puff YA fiction which focuses on cars and drag racing (a la Grease), and Jupiter Jones winning a jalopy using math (yay 3Investigators!), and King's Christine.